Boating Knowledge Base
Have a sailing question? Access NauticEd’s sailing and boating knowledge base, and gain in-depth answers to your sailing questions. If you’re interested in powerboating, visit our new powerboating blog.
Tacking and Gybing Maneuvers
Tacking when you want to sail in a direction to exactly where the wind is coming from— guess what—you can’t! The best we can do is to follow a zig-zag course by sailing at about 30 to 40 degrees off the wind...
Winged Sail Vector Diagrams
Sail and Winged Sail Wind Force Vector Diagrams. And it's highly relevant right now because of the America's Cup AC45 catamarans using winged sails.
Chart Symbols
Studying a harbor layout does very little good without understanding the symbols and what they signify. It pays to
Sailing Wind Velocity & Direction
The faster the boat sails into the wind, the more the apparent wind speed increases and the more it feels like it is coming from the front of the boat. They say "The apparent wind is forward of the true wind". This means the apparent wind feels like it comes from a more forward direction than the true wind.
Sailboat Design
Surely, the first sailboat was invented by a five-year-old child with a block of wood. He or she stuck a twig through a piece of animal skin and then down into a knothole in the wood.
Electronic Communications
Nowadays, gigabytes of data can be sent in a second as a digital signal. It is all a complete Wow!
How to Transport a Boat After You Buy It
Learn how to transport a boat after you buy it with three effective methods that fit your budget and experience level.
Understanding How Airflow Creates Lift
Understanding how Airflow creates lift and the need for smooth airflow when sailing...
Narrow Channels and Traffic Separation Schemes
Rules 9 and 10 deal with narrow channels and traffic separation schemes, and mainly refer to larger commercial traffic...
Motor Sailing
If the wind is light and your time is short you might want to consider motor-sailing—using your auxiliary engine...
Springing a sailboat On and In
Coming up to a Tee-head is more the situation where you need to spring on. The need for accuracy in your maneuver is heightened when the space is tight.
Topping Up your Energy on a Sailboat
There are several methods to top-off your energy on a sailboat.
Basic Surface Geometry
Below is a brief summary of how locations are commonly expressed on different surfaces.
The Engine – Getting Familiar with a Charter Boat
While this is a sailing boat propelled by the wind and mostly without the need for burning fossil fuels the most devastating breakdown besides hull failure is the engine.
Starting the Engine – Getting Familiar with a Charter Boat
Regarding the starting procedure, we’re assuming that since you’re actually commanding a sailboat you pretty much know how to turn the key and all the other safety precautions.
Crew Overboard
Crew ("Man") Overboard (MOB) is fortunately relatively rare, but chances are that in your sailing career it will happen.
Docking onto End Ties
Wind blowing you off the dock end ties, plan a fairly steep approach so that you are facing more into the wind.
Head-on Nav Rules Situation
The Rule (a) Unless otherwise agreed when two power-driven vessels are meeting on reciprocal or nearly reciprocal...
Starting the Diesel Engine
Prior to starting the diesel engine: Become familiar with how and when a vessel’s transmission gear shift...
Sail Trim
While setting the sails to general rules of thumb will get you really close to a good sail set,
Planning to use springlines when docking
Like a work of fine engineering, a spring maneuver requires a design. The key is to plan the maneuver by considering the wind, current, and other obstacles, then design the placement and directions of the forces and moments.
Bilge Pumps on a Charter Boat
Boats have two types of pumps to empty bilge water; electronic and manually operated.
Navigation Units
Sailors are forever measuring stuff. This brings us to the subject of navigation units. As we all remember from the good ol’ school days, measurement is the process of comparing something with an established standard.
Sailboat Balance
Below is an animation that shows the balance of forces: actually it is technically the balance of a concept called “moments.”
